It wasn't quite the departure from the island that I had in mind - before we could run out of summer we ran out of Rose. We didn't get to take the last photo of the children on the tree trunk on the beach or go blackberrying. One more night of out of control writhing pain and we were admitted first to St Marys on the island for them to stabilise the pain - unsuccessfully - and then blue lighted back to London. In none of my mental pictures of how the summer would end and the sadness with which I would pack up Rose's belongings did I imagine her strapped down in the back of the Isle of Wight ambulance service while we threw eight weeks of debris into the back of the car. No time at least to think too hard about leaving.
More ambulances today to the Marsden from Kings and back to Kings tonight - more scans to hunt down the cancer in her body but unsuccessful so far. Nerve blocks and more morphine patches and Rose finally gets a night's sleep.
In two days Rose has seen three ambulance teams, three different community escort nurses, an oncologist, a radiotherapist, three radiographers, several registrars, about 20 nurses, the pain team and of course the clowns. No wonder there are shortages in the NHS - they have spent all their money on Rose.
